


oh, where have you been, my darling young one?

by skywalkwithme



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: growing up backwards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 02:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16232156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skywalkwithme/pseuds/skywalkwithme
Summary: She wondered if the children weren't just a little odd. Weren't they? Had you noticed?couple of ficlets about adjusting to childhood and modern life. will keep adding to!





	oh, where have you been, my darling young one?

Mrs Pevensie often told her neighbors that she thought the visit to the country had been such a blessing for the children. She had been hesitant about sending them away at first, of course, as who wouldn't, their own dear babies? But the time had passed, just like that, and now here they were, so mature and grown-up, and they scarce quarrelled at all. That Professor, well, she didn't know quite what magic he had worked, but by the saints it had worked, she had never known such well-behaved young misses and misters. 

And if she was talking to Mrs Holland with the plump cheeks and the baby, she would coo at the baby and wiggle it's little fingers, before looking up to Mrs Holland's bright and somewhat anxious eyes, and say she knew she felt she would never be able to part from her little Anthony, but she felt really it was for the best, not now of course, but later on, some mothers did smother their children so, it was no good for them, best to let them try the world on their own. Why just look at Peter, only twelve and so grown-up, I worried about letting him and Susan in charge of the younger ones but look what happened, so responsible and conscientious, and they're all thick as thieves, and aren't you a little dear, look at those fat baby cheeks.

And if she was talking to Mrs Macintyre with her dark flyaway hair and her dirty-kneed children climbing the sofa, she would hold her teacup in her lap to safeguard it from flying elbows and tell her that really, it was all about letting them work off excess energy in the outdoors, some tell you exercise is unhealthy for the girls but never you believe it, even Susan is healthy as a horse, and I never saw such fast reflexes, all of them, they're getting top marks in gym, why just yesterday Lucy caught a glass I knocked just like that, her hand just went out, snap. Sharp eyes, all four, we take them hiking in the Downs and they never seem to tire, good lungs run in the family. All about encouraging healthy activity.

But if she was sitting down on the edge of the bed while Mr. Pevensie took off his tie, she would fiddle with a roller, and she would murmur that she wondered if the children weren't just a little odd. Weren't they? Had you noticed, Thomas? 

And his back turned, he would reply that they seemed to be growing up.

And she would pluck at the bristles of her roller, and think about the faraway look they always had. How she had asked Edmund yesterday what he wanted to be when he grew up, and he had given her a strange twisty smile and a short laugh, and said, "Policeman," but she didn't think he really wanted to be a policeman. And he had sounded so strangely bitter- that wasn't usual for ten-year-old boys, was it?

And how Lucy would sing strange songs, sometimes, quietly, while doing the washing-up and things, with strange lyrics about mice and magic. 

Or when she had seen Edmund and Peter playfighting outside on the stoop, and Edmund had kicked Peter's legs out from under him with terrible force, and Peter had fallen but rolled up again off his shoulder and thrown his weight sideways like at Edmund, and Edmund had fallen and Peter pitched himself over his back to pin him, and she had dropped her tea-towel and rushed out the door to scold them, but by the time she was out Peter was grabbing Edmund up and Edmund was clapping his shoulder and laughing. 

Or when she looked at Susan's workbook and it was all scribbled along the margins with strange marks that looked like a language but none she knew. 

Or how she had come into the sitting-room last night, thinking the children were up watching telly, and Susan and Peter were sitting there, Susan in the rocking-chair and Peter on the couch, his elbows leaned on his knees, one chin propped in his hand, and them talking in quiet, serious voices, the firelight glinting off Susan's hair and lighting the side of Peter's face, and Peter had said something like "..been weeks, and nothing- I don't see it's worth it" and Susan had said, "It keeps them going, Peter, we have to keep hoping, at least-" in a quiet, measured voice, and she had suddenly felt she shouldn't interrupt, as if they were teachers or important figures or something, and she should leave them to their business, but this was silly, they were her own children, and she had called for them to go to bed, and being good children, they had gone upstairs right away. But she couldn't forget how grave they had looked, so not-twelve.

And how- how they seemed to be not there, sometimes, or like they were walking through a dream and nothing mattered, or how they seemed to just look through her sometimes.

Or how still Susan sat, with her ankles crossed and her chin raised, and how she behaved so like a lady, covering her mouth when she laughed, or how Edmund always put his back to the wall of every room they went into so she had to chide him to come to the front, and how his dark eyes flicked over everyone as they spoke like he was watching.

Or how Peter walked with his back so straight and how firm his hands were, how he spoke like he was announcing to a hall or projecting his voice across a room sometimes, before correcting himself. 

Or how Lucy would sometimes reach and press her hand into one of the other's, and glance briefly up at them, and how they would walk along like that, for a time, and Mrs Pevensie never knew why.

How they didn't seem quite like children. How Mrs. Gregory's boys liked planes and cars and Davie Crockett, and Mrs Masham's daughter liked Frank Sinatra and lipsticks. And how Peter liked chess and Susan liked to listen to the news.

How they would spend the afternoon upstairs, talking, and would stop when she was near. How even Lucy's nine-year-old eyes seemed somehow very old.

And how she didn't feel like she knew them, much, how they felt sometimes like boarders in her house and not her own children, how she would feel herself hesitate before asking Peter to take out the rubbish bins because it didn't feel right, somehow. 

And how she felt, somehow, something had happened, out in the country, to make them into these solemn-eyed strangers, and she would never know what.

And she wondered if Mr Pevensie felt this, sometimes, perhaps. 

But she realized how silly she did sound, really. 

And she pulled out a lock of hair and started wrapping it round her curler and asked if he had heard how her sister's husband John's gout was faring. And it was amazing what they could do these days with the television and the microwaves and such and yet he'd been in hospital two weeks and was just the same as when he'd come in, and it was shameful, really, but he was ever a good sport about it, you know John, type you want in the trenches, not a complaint. But her sister, now. A different story-


End file.
